


Maycomb Ain't Right

by riverwood



Category: To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 05:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12624051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverwood/pseuds/riverwood
Summary: Jem Finch doesn't like the world as much as he used to.





	Maycomb Ain't Right

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one-shot I did while I was working on my Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer fanfiction.

 

Maycomb was never the place for kids, they would say. A slow moving southern town, it was, built for the elderly to sit on a porch and watch the cars and days go by as they passed in front of them. The children in the town disrupted the natural order with every summer vacation as the streets filled with kids rolling down hills in tires. It seemed every adult could look out their window in the afternoon and see a kid breaking one of their bones, or hurting themselves in another way doing something childish and “fun”. Scout Finch was known for this. There wasn’t a moment in the day that little girl wasn’t in the outdoors. No one understood why she didn’t stay inside and lay dolls or why she kept her hair short or why she was nice to Boo Radley. But that was her way, and it was her way to always do it with her brother.

Except when Miss Maudie or another adult in the neighborhood looked out in the street to see the two kids making mischief, all they found was Scout on her tire swing by herself, occasionally with Walter Cunningham. Jem Finch seemed to disappear inside the Finch household without warning, as if he had started to look at Boo Radley in a new light.

It didn’t take long for Atticus to notice his son sitting beside him on the sofa more often, or for him to see Scout coming inside by herself. The man would see Scout begging her brother to play with her, or at least talk to her, but Jem stayed in his room nonetheless. Usually Atticus would attribute this to that typical time in a boy’s life where he becomes a man, where he wants to stay by himself away from the world as he figures himself out. What convinced Atticus that puberty wasn’t the case, was the look of sadness and fear in his boy’s eyes as he watched his sister outside. The look of fear when he stepped outside to go to school. Jem didn’t want to leave the house, or his father, it seemed.

It was the early days of December when Atticus approached the boy about this, having it been a month since his son’s new behavior. Jem was found crept in the corner of the room, flipping through his book from school with his feet swinging in the air. His arm, still stuck in a thick cast from Halloween night, jutted out from his side and sat awkwardly on the floor beside him. It was a constant reminder of Bob Ewell, a constant reminder of the trial. Everything Jem wanted to forget.

Jem didn’t notice Atticus until his father sat down on the ground beside him, leaning up against the wall. His son closed the book and leaned up against Atticus’s shoulder and closed his eyes as if he was a little kid again.

Atticus reached an arm around Jem’s shoulder and accepted his son’s embrace, letting out sigh in the process.

“Scout is outside,” Atticus told him,” she’s on the tire swing if you want to join her”.

The boy didn’t respond.

“You haven’t played with her in a while, I’m sure she wants you to”.

Jem’s mumbling was so low it was a miracle Atticus heard him,” I don’t wanna”.

Though Atticus’s chuckle was empty with no heart behind it, it still got his son to look up at him as he said,” a boy your age should be outside more than he is in. When I was your age there wasn’t a moment I was in the house”.

Jem didn’t respond again, causing Atticus to sigh.

“What’s troubling you, boy? A broken arm shouldn’t get you down so much”.

Still no response.

Atticus entered his thoughts as he looked down at his son, a melancholic like fist gripping his heart as the sullen look washed over his boy’s eyes. They were green, just like his mothers. He remembered Scout had his own brown eyes.

The silence wasn’t unsettling or awkward, but more comforting than not. From time to time Atticus was worried he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his paternal role due to work and his duty to the town, so moments like this were important to him. He hoped they were important to the kids as well.

He looked at the cast on Jem’s arm when everything seemed to come together. Atticus gripped his sons shoulder tighter and pulled him in closer, letting no space come between them.

“He’s dead, son,” Atticus whispered into his son’s brunette hair,” Bob Ewell is dead, he can’t get you no more”.

“There are other men like him, Atticus,” Jem tried not to choke on his own words, but seemed to fail,” Maycomb ain’t right to people”.

“How so?”

“Y-you said so yourself,” Jem’s eyes grew more and more green as they began to shine over like freshly cut glass,” it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, but that’s all people seem to do”.

“I felt his arms around me in the dark, and I didn’t want him to hurt Scout,” he continued,” we ain’t never done nothin’ wrong, but he wanted me dead. He tried to hurt me, and I don’t even want to think about what he woulda done to Scout”.

“Jem- “.

“Tom Robinson ain’t done nothin’ and he's dead, Boo Radley held me in his arms yet people still hate that man,” Jem didn’t mean for any tears to fall or for his voice to crack, but it happened anyway,” all people seem to do is hate mockingbirds. It ain’t right! It ain’t right, Atticus!”

Atticus had never been one to coddle his children or be the authoritative type, but he found himself running his hand up and down his boy’s back in comforting circles as he felt Jem shake and tremble under his touch. Jem stuffed his face into his father’s arm as he let his emotions pour out, spill everything that he had been holding in since the last day of October.

“P-People ain’t right, Atticus,” Jem said in-between his sobs,” I hate the world!”

Atticus let Jem say any profanity he wanted to about humanity, because he understood. Many times has he stood in the courtroom and thought about giving up hope on the human race as a hold as he watched rapists and murderers go free or the innocent go to their own damnation.

“I’m scared,” Jem’s sobs had turned to sniffles and shaky breaths, but his being trembled still,” I’m scared to go outside, to get hurt again. I’m scared when Scout goes outside that she might come back in Boo Radley’s arms with an arm snapped in half”.

“Jem, son, look at me”, when Jem didn’t look up, Atticus told him again, “look at me”.

Jem looked up at his father with swollen eyes and snot dripping off his chin. In that instance, Atticus realized how young his son was. From his round face with nothing but peach fuzz to adorn it, to his small body that shook as if he was having his own internal earthquake. A young man, but still a young boy.

“Son, I’m not going to deny the wickedness in this world. People are poisoned with ignorance and hate, but there is a light. You know good people, we are good people. Spending your whole life quaking in fear from the world is going to keep you from seeing the good people. You don’t want that, do you, boy?”

“We are good people,” Jem echoed and Atticus nodded.

“We are”, Atticus heaved himself to his feet and looked down at his son once more,” I know it’ll take time, but I want you outside when you’re ready”.

Jem nodded. Atticus went to leave the room, but stopped when the boy called him once more.

“Atticus,” his son said,” you stayed with me that entire night, when Bob Ewell broke my arm”.

“That I did”.

“Why didn’t you go to bed? Why did you stay up and watch me”?

“Well,” Atticus put a hand in his pocket and turned the pocket watch in his hand,” isn’t it obvious?”

Jem shook his head.

“It’s simple. You’re my son, and I was worried”, Atticus gave his son a small smile and made his way out of the room. He wanted to lie down, he was drained from everything that day.

The man could’ve sworn he heard a meek,” thanks, Atticus,” before closing his bedroom door.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if it was any good or not (probably not), but I needed a break from my Huck Finn fanfiction (as much as I love it, that's all I  
> I've been writing for over 2 months lol). I love TKAM so much, it's such an important book like Huck Finn and everyone should read it.  
> Has anyone read Go Set a Watchman? I haven't read it, but I'm kind of interested. However, I don't want to look at Atticus in a different light because of it, since Atticus is my favorite fictional character of all time. What are your opinions?


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